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The news and photos of Hammerschmidt's gruesome death covered the front page of Thursday's morning paper. By the time school started, all twelve students knew what had happened. They sat in silence, staring at the substitute teacher, frightened for their beloved teacher.
*
The school board members convened for an emergency meeting the day after Hammerschmidt's death. They all agreed that the logical course of action would be to remove Miss Annabelle from teaching the rest of the year, irregardless of her yet-to-be-determined guilt or innocence on her child molestation case or her role in Hammerschmidt's death. Her twelve students could be split among the other third-grade teachers for the final nine weeks of school.
That was the obvious course of action to handle this bizarre situation...but...but several of the school board members were moved deeply by the children's essays about their teacher. Never had those adults seen such love expressed for a teacher. Several of those school board members admitted in the meeting that they were moved to tears while reading the essays the night before. Miss Annabelle was more than a teacher to these children...she was a hero and a mother. Although the school board members knew the logical thing to do, the easy thing to do, the question was asked, "Is there another way?"
*
By Friday morning, it was the rumor of upstate New York: a beautiful woman and her foreign lover colluded to take revenge on a wholesome school board superintendent who had stopped the nymph from her sexual yearnings for her students. The beautiful siren lured the helpless school board superintendent to her home and to his death, the rumor went. She and her foreign lover ambushed the school board superintendent and bludgeoned him nearly to death. Then, they left him to die alone.
The rumors, media, accusations were just too much. The school board, with Ms. Minner now the acting superintendent, ruled on Monday against Miss Annabelle in the child molestation case. Of course, Miss Annabelle being a murder suspect overwhelmed their decision. Now she would never teach again.
Ms. Minner got what she wanted. But several of the school board members, still deeply moved by the children's essays, felt horrible about their ruling. Those members, in a strange move, fought with Ms. Minner to give the students and their parents the choice to keep Miss Annabelle as their teacher for the final eight-and-a-half weeks left of school. Those school board members who still had the innocent child of the past within them, knew that this move would forever mean so much to the children and would be a precious gift to Miss Annabelle. These adults knew their child molestation ruling was wrong, but to keep Miss Annabelle and her students together...that would be justice.
The school board drafted a letter that same day and sent it home on Tuesday with Miss Annabelle's students to their parents. The letter explained the permanent dismissal of Miss Annabelle based on the child molestation ruling. The letter also explained the bizarre string of events, climaxing in Hammerschmidt's death, for which Miss Annabelle had been indicted as a suspect and would stand trial this coming summer. Each parent was given the option to have his or her child switched to another teacher...or, "because of the rare personal and academic success of this student/teacher combination, parents may elect to have their child finish out the year with Miss Annabelle." Of course, Ms. Minner figured all parents would want their children moved to another class, and Miss Annabelle's year would be effectively over.
In a stunning display of belief in Miss Annabelle's innocence, all parents, under great pressure from their children, let their children stay in Miss Annabelle's class. That totally unexpected reaction shocked Ms. Minner and some members of the school board. But that unanimous decision did not surprise the school board members who fought for this option.
*
Mr. Melbourne's father posted bail for his son and Miss Annabelle. The school board assigned a substitute to finish the school year teaching Mr. Melbourne's students.
Thursday morning, however, one very long week and one day after her darkest day, Miss Annabelle re-entered the rational world again. Miss Annabelle looked at her twelve little unsung heroes and knew they had fought hard to remain here. Who knows what horrible things they heard about me, she thought. Yet, here they sit, all twelve. ... Miss Annabelle could feel how much these little ones loved her. And, oh how she loved them! This room is full of pure love, she said in her thoughts.
"I want to thank you," Miss Annabelle began, "for honestly seeing through the illusions that surround me. Each and every one of you are using your own thinking. I know it's not easy, but you're struggling to see past other people's thinking to what is. I'll reward you with the best two months of the whole year."
Miss Annabelle really meant that, for now she could get very focused. She knew where things stood. After this school year, she would not teach again, but now it was certain that she would have until the end of the school year with her students. She felt enormous relief and peace. At the same time, she felt sadness that she would be kept out of their futures and would not see their development in the years to come.
"May I say something?" Ian asked, making Miss Annabelle realize she had drifted off momentarily in her thoughts.
"Yes, Ian," she said, smiling.
"You're a genius, Miss Annabelle. No, I really mean it. You've seen our test scores. Nattie was the highest, and most of us beat the sixth graders. Talk about values -- look at what you're doing for us." Ian was very serious, and his voice was shaking because it meant a lot to him to be able to express this to his teacher. "So when I heard what happened last week, I knew it wasn't true -- not like I heard about it. I asked my dad what Hammerschmidt did for a living. He said he was a tax collector. I read the paper. It said he was a tough tax collector. I thought, `What values has he brought to people?' You know, I couldn't think of anything. Then I realized what makes the world nice -- it's geniuses like you who bring lots of values to people. And good people who devote their whole lives to bring values to others cannot turn around and do bad things like those rumors say about you. So when my mom and dad read the letter to me, I told them nothing in the world can get me to leave your class, not even Hammerschmidt's death. Nothing could stop me from being right here with you!"
Miss Annabelle was so moved she could not manage to say more than, "Thank you, Ian, from the bottom of my heart." But the children could see how deeply Ian's explanation affected her.
Next, Teddy talked. Then Sally. Then Cathy. Then Jeremiah. ...Miss Annabelle let them talk, all twelve of them, as long as they wanted, all along thinking how glad she was to have all this on tape to keep as her fond memories in the years ahead.
*
Salinski called Miss Annabelle to tell her that the earliest the trial would happen was mid-summer, which pleased her. She wanted to devote herself to her students the next two months with few distractions.
Knowing she had just eight weeks left brought on the nostalgia. She felt as if she had shared a lifetime with her students. She decided to offer a voluntary hour after school each day for open discussion. She saw it as a way, for those who wanted to attend, to socialize...yet socialize through good discussions. The extra hour meant that those who stayed would have to arrange rides from school or take a long walk home since they would miss their school bus. Miss Annabelle wanted to give them all rides home, but her lawyer told her she could not do that, for the school had a faculty member in the classroom at all times, and the ride home would give Ms. Minner grounds to terminate Miss Annabelle before the end of the school year.
In yet another testimony to Miss Annabelle, all twelve students attended the extra discussion hour. The discussions were, in fact, so interesting and so full of puzzle-building neothinking in action, Miss Annabelle started to record them. (Twenty-seven years later, she would realize the seeds of her student's greatness were planted during these discussion sessions.)
As Miss Annabelle had hoped, the class became closer and closer from the discussion hour. Most of them rode home together in car pools. During these final weeks, the twelve children were discovering a whole new dimension to friendship. Together, they were discovering who they were meant to be.
Together, they were in another world never seen here on Earth, a fully honest world. A world of pure love. A world with powerful meaning and drive. The motivation in Miss Annabelle's class broke new dimensions in schooling. They shared a love for life that would, 27 years later, bring these Neothinkers together once again to lead the greatest project ever endeavored by mankind.
*
As a consequence of their neothinking, several of her students were getting involved in a hobby, business, experiment, or research of some kind in a major way. Their projects brought exciting discussions to the discussion hour, which helped generate ideas that benefited those projects. Also, the discussion hour brought the little Neothinkers positive reflections and peer interest in their projects. They were soul mates, independently blazing ahead on their own success puzzles in life, yet coming together and sharing and admiring each others' accomplishments.
Teddy, at nine years old, ran a million-dollar company now. He was able to handle it through revolutionary new time-management and business concepts. He managed his busy schedule through the mini-day schedule where he scheduled his physical movements to time slots instead of his tasks as in the traditional schedule. He explained that by doing this, he set up his schedule like a production line, driving through tasks like a rivet man driving through rivet after rivet on the assembly line.
"The traditional schedule that attaches tasks to time is like the old way of building cars at the turn of the century," he said in the discussion hour. "They used to bring over and put the seat in, then they would change all their tools to put the steering wheel in. Then they'd have lunch. It'd take all day to put together one car that way. When Henry Ford completely changed production from doing whole tasks to doing simple movements with the production line, no one wasted time walking around or changing tools. Soon, the same factories were putting out a hundred cars a day!"
Teddy went on to say that he could have never done what he was doing without breaking his work day into physical movements that he called mini-days because like the stations on an assembly line, he'd start and end each mini-day like its own little day, right on the times allotted.
He also discovered the mini-company, which he revealed to the class earlier in the year. Only by having discovered how to make others drive their portions of the business with entrepreneurial energy could he have grown to this level of revenues.
Teddy said that Miss Annabelle's talk with his dad at the beginning of the school year always stayed with him. That talk combined with being taught to seek common denominators to get down to the essence of things let him spot the crucial common denominators in business: First, the common denominator behind mass production was scheduling by the physical movements and not tasks, which had sent production through a quantum leap. Why not set up my production that way, Teddy eventually realized, setting up his mini-day schedule, which sent his production through a quantum leap. Second, the common denominator behind every business itself was making money. Why not set up every job that way, Teddy eventually realized, setting up his mini-companies.
Teddy always seemed to be on the go, but he attended every discussion hour those last two months. He, along with the other students, inherently knew this gathering was something special, something they would never have again. The children and their teacher cherished the preciousness of this time together.
*
Cathy, becoming more beautiful by the day, always sat next to Teddy. She liked him a lot and loved to hear his stores about his business. She, too, talked openly now. Three weeks into the discussion period, she revealed the most unique diet Miss Annabelle had ever heard about. Cathy figured it out on her own -- and it worked!
"The idea is very simple, and that's why it works so well," Cathy said proudly. "I always had cravings like my mom, my dad, and my sisters. I'd try, on my own, to diet. But the cravings always won in the end. My mom always has a book or article around the house on some diet she is trying. Through all the fancy diets, though, I knew the essence of what would cure my weight problem was: get rid of my cravings. If those went away, I'd be slim and beautiful. But I had no control over my cravings. They could hit me at any time and in many different ways. I fought them, but the cravings always won out in the end. Dieting just made it worse."
Then Cathy looked down, perhaps a little embarrassed, and said, "Of course, I noticed how beautiful Miss Annabelle was the first day of class. And when she sat next to me at lunch that one day and hugged me...well, I really liked it. No one ever noticed me before. And that made me want to become like her. ...So I watched how she ate, every day. I noticed she always got the same thing -- a turkey sandwich. And she always ate the same amount and never bothered with the dessert or roll. I used to think, doesn't she get bored with the same food every day? But I wanted to be like her, so I tried it too. Every day, I'd get the turkey sandwich. And after about three weeks, something weird happened: I found myself craving that hot turkey sandwich! I no longer craved all those other items sitting on the lunch line...for the first time, I only craved my hot turkey sandwich! That's when I realized I might have discovered the golden key to my curing weight problem, because I realized I might be able to control my cravings! Instead of having dozens of cravings every day, maybe I could have just three or four."
"Cool," Teddy said, a whole step ahead of the rest of the class, "What a great breakthrough."
"Thank you," Cathy said, looking up and blushing. "So, I started eating the same breakfast and the same dinner too. I also picked out an evening snack and had the same snack each evening. My mom yelled at me at first, but I didn't care. Maybe I could help her, too, I used to think. Sure enough, in about three weeks, I craved those breakfast and dinner foods too. In turn, the dozens of other cravings I fought against every day were gone! That's because I already had my craving in place. What's more, my four cravings now actually occurred like clockwork at their times of the day. For the first time in my life, I had control."
"Wow," Natasha said, thoroughly absorbed in Cathy's story.
"Right away, I started losing weight. I lost about eleven pounds because I no longer snacked. Then, I stopped losing. Now I knew I had to do the dreaded thing: eat less food. Boy, was I in for a surprise! When I cut my evening snack in half, I still just craved the same thing...my strawberries and whipped cream. But because it was just one craving and not 15 or more, it was easy to handle and overcome. And when I had my strawberries and cream, although half the amount, I still serviced my craving. It was really easy. I cut down my dinner the same way. It was easy to do. And that is how I got to where I am today!"
"You're beautiful, Cathy," Teddy said.
"I admire you for what you've done," Natasha said.
"Yeah, me too!" Sally said.
Cathy turned red. Miss Annabelle walked over and said, "I knew you would be slim and beautiful someday, darling. I'm very proud of you."
Cathy had never been so happy. She had conquered the nemesis in her life, an enemy that had destroyed many branches of her family tree in the past. For weeks to come, she re-listened to, in her head, those compliments given to her today. The one compliment she heard over and over in her head was Teddy telling her not that she looked beautiful, but that she was beautiful.
Miss Annabelle realized the creation of the discussion hour late in the school year was crucial. She realized she was witnessing the seeds of greatness in her students, and this was a way for them to start articulating and concretizing their beginnings. Miss Annabelle encouraged Cathy to write her complete diet onto paper. Teddy said he could probably sell the diet through his business!
When Teddy made that comment to Cathy, something wonderful happened in Alan's mind. He was passionately interested in new technological breakthroughs. He could not seem to read enough about technology. His father got him his own subscription to a magazine called Tomorrow and, upon Alan's request, the USA Today daily paper. Alan would scour the Money section and the Life section to get a glimpse of new technologies of any kind. He knew his dad paid good money for his subscriptions. ...Sitting in this discussion, he thought, "Just as I love to read about technologies, a lot of people out there would love to read about Cathy's diet...or about Teddy's business ideas...or about Ian's theories."
Alan loved to read, and he enjoyed writing, too. The idea of selling valuable information excited him.
"Who else has got a breakthrough -- something really different like Cathy?" he said out loud.
"I might," Natasha answered. "Mine has to do with love."
"Oh yeah?" Cathy said, eyes wide and smiling.
"Well, my mom and dad never seemed to get along. They even went to counseling,
and they did two of those retreats together. But they always seemed to get back
into arguing. Therapy didn't help much. I used to avoid them when they argued,
but one morning over breakfast, I started to listen to them. I listened to every
argument for the next couple weeks. It always seemed that when they started
to get agitated, Mom would say some comment that began with, `Maybe if you were
around a little more...'. Every time, this would make my dad furious, and
the argument would quickly escalate. My dad is a very successful general contractor.
He designs and builds expensive custom homes. I know he takes enormous pride
in his work. His work is his accomplishment in life, and each home is like his
personal trophy. He works hard to do such great work, and he works hard
so our family can live in one of those beautiful homes. He's also saving money
so my brother, sisters, and I can all go to
college. So, I talked to my mom. I think she was worried that my dad would meet
another woman like her father did when he left her mother. But I told her how deep dad's
creations meant to him...they were a part of him; I know this because he always takes me to
every new house he's building, and he walks me through every room and tells me why it's that way.
He gets really excited, and I used to wonder why mom wasn't with us. Each custom
home he's created and built was like a part of him, all his creations that together make up the
whole man. I explained this to my mom. I told her she needs to become interested instead
of antagonized by dad's creations. `Go with him and let him get excited
and show you, too,' I told her. `Compliment him and admire his work -- it's beautiful!' I told her. `Get
behind his life's work, not against it.' As the bait, I told her the closeness would make him
fall in love with her again. So, she did exactly what I suggested. Now, mom spends a
lot more time with him, going around with him in the day from site to site. They even
discuss ideas and look at blueprints together in the evenings. They're both so happy now. I
even see them kissing and hugging now, which I could not remember ever seeing before.
And they laugh together. I love their laughter. ...I don't know, I just knew it would work
if Mom could get into his accomplishments. And Dad gets so inspired now by my mom.
It's beautiful."
"Wow, that's sweet," Sally said. "They've discovered what my mom and I call the celebration."
"I wish my parents were like yours," Cathy said.
"Man, that's good, Nattie," Alan said. "Do you think you could write down the reasons why you think it worked so well for your mom and dad?"
"I think so," Natasha answered.
"Great! Who else has something unique like Nattie and Cathy...and Teddy?"
Miss Annabelle looked at Alan curiously. He was really pumped up. What idea does he have? she wondered.
"I've got a lot of ideas on physics and metaphysics," Ian said.
"Oh, yeah...I love your ideas," Alan said, smiling wide. "Can you write a paper on your theory?"
Ian nodded.
"I've been getting into politics and why it's not working," Johnny said. "I can surely write a paper about it."
"I go to the library and do a lot of research on cancer and health with my mom," Sally said. "I already have lots of research notes."
"I don't like what I hear at church. I've come up with some new ideas, some of them based on Miss Annabelle and Ian's ideas," Jeremiah said.
"Oh, I've got some different approaches to music I've been experimenting with," Reggie said.
Alan looked around the room at everybody. His eyes were big. He was about to burst with a big idea, but he remained calm and calculating and said, "During these discussion periods, I've heard some of the most innovative ideas I've ever heard or read about. You know, I love to read about new developments in technology. But I love anything new that goes beyond what exists now...to the next level. These things you all talk about like Teddy's business techniques, Cathy's diet, Nattie's love advice, Ian's cosmos, Reggie's music, Jeremiah's religion, Sally's medical ideas, Johnny's politics...these are fantastic advancements of knowledge!"
Miss Annabelle could not have said it better herself.
"What, I say, should we do about that? I say we should get this knowledge down on paper and spread it to hundreds or thousands of people. Let your special knowledge spread to many others. Nattie, what if you could save a thousand marriages?"
"Wouldn't that be cool!" she answered.
"Cathy, what if you helped thousands of people get slim and happy like you?" he said, on a roll.
"Yeah, I'd love that!" she said. She also loved being officially considered slim now.
"And you, Johnny...what if your political ideas started to get traction out there?"
"Awesome," Johnny said, throwing an air high-five across the room to Alan's reciprocating air high-five.
Now the kids were pumped up, too. Miss Annabelle was moved by Alan's charisma and his talent of being able to sweep people into a big idea.
"Think about it -- hundreds of people seeing our breakthroughs," Alan rolled on. "I want to put together a booklet called Breakthrough News: Fresh Money, Power, Love, and Health Ideas!
"Teddy, you're the businessman. You said you could sell Cathy's diet...how about a whole information package covering all these breakthroughs?"
"You're a genius, Alan. I could sell a lot of those -- I know it. Are you kidding, with a title like that...coming from kids? The curiosity will be fantastic. When can this be done?"
"Let's set a deadline," Alan said. "We've still got five weeks of school left. Let's get Breakthrough News finished in four weeks. That gives us three weeks to work on it together in the discussion hour with Miss Annabelle before I get the final copy printed for you and your salesmen."
"Deal!" Teddy yelled.
The other kids broke into an applause and cheered. As it would turn out, Breakthrough News would be the legacy of the puzzle-building Neothink mentality Miss Annabelle achieved with her third graders. Twenty seven years later, the seeds of their greatness could be found in this historic publication.
*
All year, Miss Annabelle had two main objectives: 1) teach the children fundamental academics in an integrated conceptual fashion as opposed to a disintegrated perceptual fashion as did most educators. Instead of simply teaching the dates and events in history, she tied each historic event back to the larger concept of freedom versus tyranny, which shaped history and its events. That integrated, conceptual thinking, integrating endless, scattered events (i.e., percepts) to larger, timeless common denominators (i.e., concepts), enabled her students to see deeper than others -- to the deeper logic behind events. 2) Her other main goal was to prompt her students' minds into integrated thinking and onto puzzle-building Neothink.
She had spent seven months developing their minds. Now, over the last two months, they had become self-perpetrating integrated thinkers or self-leaders as Mr. Melbourne called them. With their ability to efficiently see through appearances to the essence of things -- to what is -- in this world of many illusions, they were competent to make their own decisions, be their own authorities, and lead themselves through life. They would not need "higher" authorities or leaders telling them how to think or live.
The final two months became a rewarding time for Miss Annabelle as she watched her beloved students' minds take off with Neothink as they began building their success puzzles in life. Miss Annabelle helped them integrate and coordinate their launching pad -- their Breakthrough News. During the final five weeks, their discussion group resembled a publishing house as they discussed, developed, read and edited their breakthroughs. Here, at nine years old, these children experienced the meaning of life: the happiness that comes from creating important values that benefit society.
"Oh, what a feeling..." Alan muttered two weeks before the end of the school year as he handed out the final draft to his soul mates.
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